I ranked the best iOS 17 features from most useful to straight gimmicky

For those who’d rather text than call, this one’s for you. (But also, Live voicemail is great for folks who simply don’t have the patience with anonymous callers or waiting “for the next available associate”.)

Like Google’s Call Screen feature and Samsung’s Bixby Text Call, Live voicemail transcribes the incoming caller’s message for you so that you can read the message first before picking up or hanging up.

Also: iPhone envy? These 3 iOS 17 features have Android alternatives

I recently canceled my auto insurance plan, and the number of cold calls I received from competing services was beyond me. That’s when Live voicemail came in handy. Instead of picking up every call, I simply toggled on the feature, let the iPhone transcribe the callers, and picked up when there was a meaningful offer on the table.

That said, there’s one caveat to using Live voicemail and it’s the fact that not everyone is as receptive to speaking to an automated voice bot. When you activate the feature, a chatbot communicates with the caller and tells them you’re unavailable to pick up the call at the time. In most cases, callers hang up a second or two into the message. To be fair, I would, too, if I didn’t hear an actual person picking up.